Scheduled Activities
Kente in Context
February 5,
7:30 p.m.
Booth Library West Reading
Room
Kente cloth has an important symbolic meaning in Ghana especially with regard to royal ranks and public honors. It has in recent times also become powerfully evocative as a broader symbol of African Culture abroad. This talk will examine the development of kente traditions and some of its traditional uses within Ghana as well as some of the more recent works that kente cloth has inspired.
Robert S. Petersen, presenter, associate professor, Art
A Self-Efficacious People: Yearning to Learn
February 17,
4:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440
As a recent invited guest at the African Methodist Episcopal University in Liberia, Dr. Pearson will share her experiences with the African people. In particular, she will share how African people have been self-efficacious in their pursuit for freedom, dignity, and honor, particularly in education. In her sojourn, she served as acting president with 71 full-time instructional personnel, and approximately 4,000 students.
Mildred Pearson, presenter, assistant professor,
Early Childhood, Elementary, and Middle Level Education
Kente Iconicity and �Black Atlantic� Cultural Politics
February 19,
7:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440
This presentation situates the rise of the brightly colored kente as an internationally recognizable icon of Black pride in three interwoven strands of history: the European colonization of West Africa, the movements for African political independence and civil rights in the United States, and the emergence of �Black Atlantic� elites in Africa, the Americas, the Caribbeans and Europe. An examination of these histories is critical for an understanding of the deployment of the kente and other cultural artifacts and practices in the making of global African identities.
Klevor Abo, presenter, instructor, African American Studies
Film � Daughters of the Dust
February 24, 7:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440
An award-winning and wonderful, beautiful film directed by an African American, Julie Dash, about the Gullah culture of South Carolina, and how Gullah people cherish the ways of their West African ancestors (1991).
Ann Boswell, moderator, professor, English
An Introduction to Kofi N. Awoonor: Reconciliation and Atonement in Comes the Voyager at Last: A Tale of Return to Africa
February 26, 4:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440
Arguably Ghana�s premiere postcolonial poet, Awoonor�s work spans several genres and five decades. Interweaving poetry and prose, myth and history, Awoonor moves from exile and satirical critique of modern Ghana in This Earth, My Brother (1971) toward return and reconciliation Comes the Voyager�(1992). This lecture introduces Awoonor�s work through selected readings from and commentary on his poetry with an emphasis on his mythic rendering of returning to Africa as an Ewe man soon to serve as representative to the United Nations of the nation that had once detained him on subversion charges for nearly a year. Awoonor�s career exemplifies the compassion of black humanism that fashioned his politics of poetry and the poetics of politics.
Michael Loudon, presenter, professor, English
The Ceremonial Aspects of Ghanaian Kente
March 3, 4:00 p.m.
Library Conference Room 4440
Johnson Kofi Kuma, a native of Ghana, will present a workshop on the ceremonial aspects of Ghanaian Kente. His presentation will include a slide presentation and discussion.
Johnson Kofi Kuma, presenter, professor, Library Services
